Assassinating Soleimani endangers lives in the Middle East and the U.S. [Opinion]

Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Basra, Iraq, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2020. Thousands of people gathered in Basra on Tuesday to bid farewell to Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a senior Iraqi militia commander who was killed in a U.S. airstrike on Friday.

Photo: Associated Press

For 2020, President Trump is taking America on a path to war. With Iran’s retaliatory strike on the al-Asad air base, will Trump push us over the edge?

On Jan. 2, the White House confirmed the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force and Iran’s top military general. President Trump ordered a drone strike just outside the Baghdad airport, killing him and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, commander of the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq. The White House blamed the militia for killing a U.S. serviceman in December 2019 and retaliated with airstrikes killing 24, rousing anti-American uproar.

Days after the Trump administration’s latest military adventure, the fallout has been momentous. President Trump ordered 3,500 U.S. troops to deploy to Iraq where the fate of the now-embattled U.S. embassy is in question. Meanwhile the Iraqi parliament—the government we helped create—held a special session and voted to expel the U.S. military from the country altogether. Much to the vexation of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Europe, India and China have responded with caution and skepticism. Pompeo retorted killing Soleimani “saved lives in Europe as well.”

The irony is that the people of Iran and several Arab nations had taken to the streets to protest government corruption on the eve of the Soleimani assassination. Much of that popular unrest shifted overnight toward large-scale demonstrations against continued American military intervention in the region.

Since calling for an exit from endless wars in the Middle East in his 2015 presidential campaign, Trump has called the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, reneged on the Iran Nuclear Deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) — despite Iran’s full compliance — and reinstated crippling sanctions against the Iranian people starting November 2018.

Iran remains defiant. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, a key architect of the Iran Nuclear Deal that the U.S. abandoned after Trump’s election, pledged revenge and mourned the loss of a national icon. Working alongside the U.S., Soleimani was largely responsible for the campaign to eradicate ISIS in the region after the disastrous 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In contrast, he also played an instrumental role in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s grip on power during the bloody Syrian Civil War.

Soleimani’s funeral procession in Ahvaz, Iran on Sunday attracted mourners from across the nation. The magnitude of national solidarity for Soleimani shows how his death is perceived as the murder of a hero, not a hated terrorist as the Trump administration portrays.

Sunday also saw President Trump stoke war over Twitter. He first threatened Iraq with sanctions. We should recall the toll U.S. sanctions had on civilians during the 1990s. Along with the invasion and occupation of Iraq since 2003, the perpetual bludgeoning of the Iraqi people by American forces, ensuing Sunni-Shia sectarianism and ISIS have killed well over a million people.

To Iran he boasted of $2 trillion in military spending and “sending some of that brand-new beautiful equipment their way.” He even threatened to attack “Iran proper,” including sites of “Iranian culture.” Those actions would be illegal and constitute war crimes. By the end of the day, Tehran had announced it was finally suspending the already tattered Iran Nuclear Deal.

The longstanding policy of Iranian encirclement endangers Americans as well. U.S. troops and assets number approximately 70,000 in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arab Gulf States, Syria, Jordan and Turkey. They are now all targets. But why are they all there in the first place?

The Persian Gulf is the major artery of the global energy market. Its southeastern tip, the Strait of Hormuz, is a volatile choke point. One fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply flows through a two-mile waterway. Massive oil tankers from Asia and Europe float about American naval warships. We should not be igniting war at the earth’s flammable center.

The spectacle of an American president sparking global war over Twitter is an indication of the menace we have become to our planet’s stability. America has subverted genuine foreign policy for a criminal barrage of airstrikes, assassinations and economic starvation against countries rich in oil reserves. But ordinary citizens will suffer. Even Israel is in the line of fire.